Clocks go forward

'GMT' (or 'UTC') doesn't end at all of course. It continues all year around, it's just we in the UK don't use it for the next 7 months. Parts of western Africa use it as well as Tv and radio stations, shipping, computers etc.


Incidently, I just tried to record Jonathan Ross and my cable box says I can't because it's 'already finished'

And Iceland is permanently GMT.

basically we just spend the next seven months doing everything an hour earlier

Or, more simply, they always change at 1am GMT.

.....and in fact throughout the EU at that time.

I happened to be watching the NC last night at 1am, and noticed that they didn't have any problems with the time change.

Both clock and ticker re-appeared after the title sequence. However, I did wonder why they were still in N6. Isn't it normally a World News simulcast from N8 by 1am?

I was watching Sky News last night and they cheated by putting the clock forward to 01:57 when it reached 00:57 rather than waiting until 1am GMT. They were in good company though, Big Ben was also put forward early and Sky News missed showing it live.

I'm guessing N8 may have been having technical stuff done/clean etc. It's the easiest time of week for them to do it at weekends overnight.

Sky did this on the last clock change as well, as in the past changing the clock while on air has prooved problematic.

it's more fun when the clock go back because some clocks don't have a function for going backwards so you have to advance them 11 hours

same applies for clocks with a chiming mechanism which cannot go backwards unless you want to break the clock, some town hall / church clocks have to go forward 11 hours, stopping on each hour for the chiming mechanism to function and unwind.

some public clocks have a function where they stop for an hour when the clocks go forwards or stop for 11 hours when they go back

you learn some pretty trivial stuff working for a brough council (it was a YTS course which shows my age)

Do they usually?

I just had a thought, though - they made a big thing about Parliament switching off the lights in the clock tower for Earth Hour at 8.30pm on Saturday. I thought that they usually switched off the lights on clock change evening to let them wind the hands forward (or stop them for an hour), unseen?

Maybe you should use that extra hour to get out more

David